Saving Seafood

Connecting Fishermen with Hungry Communities Can also Benefit Local Food Systems

September 15, 2020 — While delivering food boxes this summer to tribal communities in Oregon’s Columbia River watershed, Bobby Rodrigo was floored by what he saw. Tribal members were living in campers and RVs with no electricity, a single hose for running water, and no permanent structures except for a bathroom. Meant to be temporary, these “in-lieu fishing communities” were created in the 1950s when the federal government-built dams that forced tribal members to leave their ancestral fishing grounds.

It was like “being in a homeless shelter, without the infrastructure,” said Rodrigo, who is part Mohawk, a member of the Native American Committee of the American Bar Association, and legal and operations director for We Do Better Relief.

Rodrigo was handing out food boxes as part of a pandemic relief effort led by a new Pacific Northwest coalition called The Wave. Efforts started earlier that day at an event in Cascade Locks, Oregon, focused on tribal members, but open to the public, before moving out to the in-lieu fishing communities.

Rodrigo brought 850 pounds of fresh-frozen Alaskan lingcod, a type of groundfish, to add to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farmers to Families Food Boxes provided by the Oregon Food Bank. The Wave also provided a food truck, KOi Fusion, that served 400 free teriyaki fish rice bowls, cooked with more of the lingcod.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

OREGON: Federal plan for Columbia River system dams sees opposition

September 3, 2020 — A final plan impacting the Columbia River system released earlier this month has some anglers and conservationists still looking for more answers.

The Preferred Alternative in the Columbia River System Operational Final Environmental Impact Statement includes structural modifications to some of the dams to benefit passage of adult salmon, steelhead and Pacific lamprey.

Greg Haller, of Pacific Rivers, said the plan does not represent a major system overall and he is not convinced the spill option benefits juvenile fish.

“Going with a flexible spill agreement as a long-term solution is a bad choice,” he said. “Breaching the dams has been identified as the best thing for fish. I think they gave that analysis short shrift.”

Additionally, proposed operational changes in the upper basin would avoid adverse effects to resident fish, including federally protected bull trout and Kootenai River white sturgeon.

Read the full story at The East Oregonian

NMFS authorizes sea lion removals to save Columbia River salmon

August 28, 2020 — Up to 716 sea lions may be removed from a Columbia River management zone over the next five years to reduce the animals’ impact on salmon and steelhead populations, under a new federal authorization granted to states and tribes in the U.S. Northwest.

In 2018, the U.S. Congress amended the Marine Mammal Protection Act to allow removal of sea lions from a stretch of the Columbia River between the I-205 bridge on Portland’s east side and McNary Dam. The change also allowed for removing sea lions from Columbia River tributaries below the McNary Dam that are spawning habitat for threatened or endangered salmon and steelhead runs.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

SEATTLE TIMES: Sea lion culling is necessary for salmon runs

August 20, 2020 — One of the most obvious, inexpensive and beneficial ways to help endangered salmon will begin in earnest this winter.

Some of the sea lions that travel far up the Columbia River to gorge on dwindling salmon and steelhead runs will be culled by a coalition of states and tribes in the river basin.

Congress and regulators made the right call in allowing this to happen.

Sea lions may eat up to 44% of the Columbia spring chinook run and 25% of the Willamette River winter steelhead run each year, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

A federal permit issued last week rightly authorizes the removal of up to 540 California sea lions and 176 Steller sea lions over the next five years, though far fewer are expected to be taken.

Read the full opinion piece at The Seattle Times

Federal officials approve sea lion kill program along the Columbia River

August 18, 2020 — As expected, federal officials on Friday approved a program to kill up to 716 sea lions along a nearly 200-mile stretch of the Columbia River and its tributaries in an effort to protect salmon at risk of extinction.

The program is a significant step-up in existing efforts, and will be in place for five years.

Targeted are both Steller’s and California sea lions, which will be darted with lethal levels of tranquilizing drugs by authorized teams from states and tribes.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

Salmon shortage threatens food chain in Pacific NW

October 28, 2019 — What was once an endless supply in the Pacific Northwest is now endangered. Millions of Chinook salmon are not surviving migration. Now, the shortage is causing officials to make some difficult decisions.

As much as air or water, so much life in the Pacific Northwest depends on salmon. Over 130 species rely on nature’s original food delivery but fewer salmon are surviving the heroic swim from the open ocean to spawning streams hundreds of miles inland.

And that means trouble for two creatures that really, really love the king of fish. Killer whales and us.

In your grandparent’s day, the Columbia Basin seemed to produce a never-ending supply and salmon the size of people. But those big “June hog” Chinooks are extinct now and this year numbers were so low, the fall fishing season was canceled.

Columbia Riverkeeper Brett Vandenheuvel said, “The estimates are about 17 million salmon would return to the Columbia every year. It was the greatest salmon fishery in the world. And now it’s about a million fish return.”

And most of those are hatchery fish with weaker genes and less fat than their wild cousins. So the southern resident killer whales that live on Chinook are starving. There are only 73 of this kind of orca left on the planet and after a grieving orca mom pushed her dead calf around Puget Sound for weeks last summer, it rekindled a decades-old debate: salmon vs. dams.

Read the full story at KOBI

How Long Before These Salmon Are Gone? ‘Maybe 20 Years’

September 17, 2019 — The Middle Fork of the Salmon River, one of the wildest rivers in the contiguous United States, is prime fish habitat. Cold, clear waters from melting snow tumble out of the Salmon River Mountains and into the boulder-strewn river, which is federally protected.

Read the full story at The New York Times

New plan targets salmon-eating sea lions in Columbia River

September 3, 2019 — More than 1,100 sea lions could be killed annually along a stretch of the Columbia River on the Oregon-Washington border to boost faltering populations of salmon and steelhead, federal officials said Friday.

The National Marine Fisheries Service said it’s taking public comments through Oct. 29 on the plan requested by Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Native American tribes.

The agency says billions of dollars on habitat restoration, fish passage at dams and other efforts have been spent in the three states in the last several decades to save 13 species of Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

Scientists studying effects of hatchery-raised salmon on wild salmon

July 9, 2019 — Tens of millions of salmon spawned and raised in hatcheries are released into waterways like the Columbia River every year.

The goal is to increase the numbers of the endangered fish. It is no doubt an important effort. But some wonder if this tinkering with Mother Nature could be harming wild salmon.

Scientists with NOAA Fisheries spent the first part of the summer along the Columbia River in Kalama and are hoping to answer that question.

They collected samples of juvenile chinook salmon. Some were wild, spawned in natural waterways. Others were spawned in hatcheries like Fallert Creek, just a few miles up the Kalama River.

In May, the hatchery released close to two million juvenile salmon into the area.

So, why are these scientists now scooping some of them up?

“With the input of all the hatchery fish coming in, we’re not quite sure where that leaves the wild stocks,” said Regan McNatte, a NOAA Research Fisheries biologist.

Simply put, they want to find out once and for all if the hatchery-raised fish are hurting the wild salmon in this area by competing too much with them for things like food and habitat.

Read the full story at KUTV